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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Total Spent: $700.00| Rating: 10

Pros:

Extremely sharp, weather resistant, excellent bokeh.

Cons:

Extending inner barrel, plastic inner barrel and hood mount.

What I like about the lens:
- Full frame lens (the FA specifier in DFA). Even with only APS-C available, it gives those cameras the “sweet spot” effect.
- Extremely sharp lens.
- Extremely good background blur (bokeh).
- Very nice contrast-y color rendering.
- Weather resistance.
- Solid aluminum casing and focus ring.
- Macro ability.
- Image quality is still good with a decent teleconverter.
- Quality related aspects of a DA* or Limited without a premium price (casing, lens details and serial number on the focus ring, solid feel).
- Aperture of f2.8 is nice to have.
- Relatively compact size.
- Images are nice and bright through the whole frame even at f2.8.

What I’m not too fond of:
- The interior barrel and hood mount are plastic, but it’s a welcome trade-off for a lower price.
- The interior barrel extends a lot. I’m just not personally fond of lenses that have any type of extending barrel because it won’t ever be as water resistant as ones that don’t. However it’s really unlikely a lens like this would be made that doesn’t have an extending barrel due to the large amount of travel the front lens element makes (fully extended, the lens is almost twice as long).
- Chromatic aberrations, specifically purple/green fringing, is visible in extreme lighting conditions.

Conclusion:
I think Pentax really needs to release more D-FA WR lenses. This lens is an excellent combination of performance, build quality, and price. It also is a future relevant lens as it can support a full frame 35mm imaging sensor (assuming Pentax eventually joins the FF party someday). This lens is well worth the price of admission, which as of this review is around $610 from popular online retailers such as B&H and Adorama. It’s a very versatile lens and can be used for pretty much anything such as it’s intended macro purposes to portraiture and event photography. Just keep in mind focusing speed with macro lenses in general isn’t the fastest or is screw-drive focusing the quietest out there.